Interacting with the international client in various countries around the world could be quite amusing sometimes. Due to the communication gap and the lack of the local language terms used in that country sometimes the sales guys find themselves in an awkward situation which they know is humorous but cant even laugh.
I am sharing some of this humor with you guys and love to hear some of your experiences as well.
Long back I was working on the Turkish market it was a start for me so I had no experience on working in that market and neither was I aware of the local lingo of the country.
There was once I was communicating with a client in Turkey through mails but never had the chance to talk to him over phone. One day I got a call from him out of blue moon and after communicating (which was a really difficult communication) he started referring to something sounding similar to pasta and after much struggle I found he was saying “ e Posta “ and struggling further I found its the local term used for E mail.
Similarly I called one of my client's office and when asked for him was told “saahib” is not in yet. I thought the person I talked to might be a low level office boy or something but later I came to know he was the sales head and its a common term in turkey for owner.
Making a Russian understand what”@” is over phone while telling your mail ID. Even Russians find it hard to narrate what @ is called. One of my client while telling his mail Id was stuck when it came to @ but was intelligent enough to say “ Now you press shift and press 2”. I somehow avoided an attack of laughter.
In my last company there was a guy in my team, very energetic and keen to learn but the only problem was he had no patience. Once he was on a call in US territory and was talking to a receptionist and she was asking too many questions so loosing his patience for the moment he said “ agar kaam nahi karna aata to doosro ka time ku waste karti ho” (If you don't know how to work why do you waste others time) thinking she is an American and he was shocked hearing “ mujhe apna kaam aata hai and yes I understand Hindi” (I know my work pretty well and yes I understand hindi). Since that day he stopped doing such things over calls.
I would appreciate some contributions from your side also. :)
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